A typical thermal printer has an enclosure for enclosing the components of the printer. Receiver medium is held in a supply tray at least partially insertable into the enclosure for supplying the receiver medium to a print head housed in the enclosure. A "picker" mechanism engages the receiver medium held in the supply tray and feeds the receiver medium to the print head. The receiver medium fed to the print head is brought into contact with a dye donor web carried by a dye donor cassette also insertable into the enclosure, the cassette capable of being disposed near the print head. The print head heat activates the dye donor web to transfer the dye to the receiver medium in order to print an output image on the receiver medium. The enclosure and the supply tray define an exterior envelope of the printer.
The dye donor cassette is usually inserted into the printer by opening a top panel of the printer and lowering the dye donor cassette into position in the printer. However, such printers are often placed in a confined space with limited head room. For example, such printers are often placed on shelves, wherein the floor of an adjacent upper shelf forms a relatively low ceiling above the top panel of the printer. Thus, this ceiling creates an interference or obstruction to opening the top panel. This makes loading the dye donor cassette difficult and time-consuming because the printer first must be removed from the shelf in order to open the top panel before loading the dye donor cartridge into the printer.
Front loading printers are known. A compact printer body capable of accepting an ink film and printing papers device into a receiving hole provided at the front face of the printer body is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,502 titled "Device For Loading Ink Film And Printing Papers In Color Video Printer" issued Jan. 11, 1994 in the name of Jae S. Kim. More specifically, this patent discloses a device having combined ink film and printing papers therein for combined loading of the ink film and printing papers into the color video printer. According to this patent, the device achieves a reduced size and thus results in compactness of the printer body. However, this combined ink film and printing papers device does not appear suitable for use where it is desired to feed printing papers and ink film independently and separately into the printer.
Therefore, there has been a long-felt need to provide a printer that obviates the need to load the dye donor cartridge by opening the top panel of the printer.